The anthrax-by-mail attacks are not biowar. They are psychological
warfare using a biowar weapon as a prop. A real biowar attack, even
with anthrax, would be a catastrophe. There is simply not enough medication
to go around. A real biowar attack with certain other diseases would
be even worse. For some diseases there is no medication at all.

This is not the first time that a shortfall of medication has been
a factor in war. "Those who fail to learn from history ..."
et cetera.

The intentionally arranged absence of an agent can be an extremely
effective biological-warfare weapon. Therein hangs a tale still relevant
today. Consider, if you will, the curious case of Atabrine, a synthetic
quinine substitute.

The history of the drug goes back to the experiments of a young English
chemist named Perkin almost a century and a half ago, when the attempt
to make synthetic quinine from coal tar accidentally resulted in the
discovery of the coal tar dyes that gave I.G. Farben its name. Those
dyes, along with Bayer aspirin and heroin, made Farben its fortune.
But it was not until 1932 that Farben chemists finally came up with
a quinine synthesis from coal tar called quinacrine hydrochloride. It
was sold under the name Atabrine.

Prior to WWII, I. G. Farben, through a series of partnerships and patent
licenses, controlled about 40 percent of the North (and 100 percent
of the South) American pharmaceutical business. Among the many companies
Farben had a hand in were two called Sterling and Winthrop. Their absolutely
fascinating story can be found in Treason's Peace, by Howard
Watson Ambruster. It's a must-read for any objective historian of pharmacology.
Farben hid its tentacles well, through a series of dummy holding companies,
interlocking directorships, and, patent licenses. As we have seen, the
usefulness of such Tarnung (http://www.sfbg.com/nessie/company.html)
has neither dwindled nor has it been eschewed. The lessons of WWII have
not been forgotten. If anything, they have been applied. Today's techniques
are far more refined. The perps have not gone away, and neither has
their motivation.

A Farben-Sterling partnership owned Winthrop. In the early '30s Atabrine
was introduced in the United States as a Winthrop product. But it was
made by Farben  all Winthrop did was to put it in ampules or to
compress it into tablets and distribute the new remedy under its own
label as made in America.

As illustrative of its importance to the national defense, the annual
report of the Surgeon General of the United States Army in 1941 indicated
that hospitalization of enlisted men for malaria in Panama and the Philippines
was well over 100 for each 1000 stationed there. Under such conditions
the grave danger to the health and efficiency of thousands of men in
the Army and Navy, many of whom were never previously exposed to malaria,
is obvious.

It is necessary ... in appraising (Atabrine)'s place in the Farben
pattern, to record the wide discrepancy in medical opinion regarding
the merits of Atabrine as a malaria remedy ... (According to numerous
qualified opinions) Atabrine, as it was then made, presented no advantages
over quinine in the treatment of malaria, and had certain toxic properties
which had to be eliminated through change in its formula before its
final acceptance as anything but an emergency substitute for the older
remedy.

 Treason's Peace: German Dyes and American Dupes,
by Howard Watson Ambruster, The Beechhurst Press, New York, 1947,
pp. 218-19

Its producers saw this as no reason not to make a profit anyhow. Sound
familiar?

Back in 1935, when Atabrine was first being tried out in the
United States on a large scale, medical authorities reported that mental
disturbances followed its use. The public relations experts at Sterling
never conceded this fault possible nor mentioned it. They contented
themselves with statements issued either directly or through sources
not readily identified as friendly which enlarged upon the tremendous
expansion made in Winthrop's production of Atabrine for national defense
purposes, and the reduction in selling price to a figure less than one-tenth
of that which was charged before the war (and before the subversive
tie-up of Winthrop with Farben was exposed).

 Ibid, p. 219

The Farben-Sterling Winthrop also used its patents on Atabrine
to restrict the production of that remedy (such as it was) for malaria
after Japan cut off our supply of quinine from the Dutch East Indies.
In this they were aided by friends in high places.

Senator Bone, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Patents
announced to the press on April 12, 1942 that the hearings which were
to begin next day into restrictions on the use of Farben owned patents
would include the subject of synthetic quinine. But Senator Bone was
in error. He was never permitted to open up his hearings of any feature
of the Farben tie-ups with Sterling or Winthrop. His hands were tied
although his committee subpoena reached into the Anti-Trust Division
of the Justice department and seized over twenty-five thousand documents
from the Sterling files and elsewhere, which revealed the details relative
to Atabrine, as well as other facts which had been pigeonholed in September
1941 when Mr. Thomas Corcoran succeeded in choking off the Justice proceedings
against Sterling.

 Ibid, p. 221

The tale of superlobbyist Thomas "Tommy the Cork" Corcoran
is very nearly worth a book of its own.

But ... I digress.

In August, over vigorous protest of Senator Bone, five other
members of the Patents Committee voted not to permit its Chairman, and
its two-fisted incorruptible counsel, Creekmore Fath, to produce a single
witness, or document, relating to Sterling and Winthrop at a public
hearing.

... The five members of the committee who yielded to the persuasions
of those who were determined not to have the Sterling-Winthrop situation
disclosed were Claude Pepper of Florida; D. Worth Clark of Idaho;
Scott W. Lucas, of Illinois; Wallace H. White Jr., of Maine; and John
A. Danaher of Connecticut.

 Ibid

Ah, names. Now we're getting somewhere. Kick butt and take names, goes
the grand old adage. Two can play that game. Starting with the old names
makes it easier to come up with the new. A few of you old-timers out
there may remember Claude Pepper for his role in the 1960s civil rights
struggle.

Of these five, Senator Pepper, prior to the vote which tied
the hands of Senator Bone, received an appeal from the Non-Sectarian
Anti-Nazi League to continue the hearings of the Patents Committee on
the "patent and cartel connection between American concerns and
Axis interests until all

Senator Pepper replied:

Appreciate your message and am sure that investigation will be all-inclusive
before it is finished. Regards.

The Senator, according to Thomas L. Stokes in the World-Telegram
of August 6, 1942, was a friend of Mr. Thomas Corcoran and the latter
... is proudly wearing another feather in his cap as super lobbyist.
He who once started Congressional investigations has now stopped one
 one that was due to produce sensational revelations about a
corporations with former German connections, which he has been protecting
from the government."

The Stokes article went on to describe two turbulent sessions in
which Thurmond Arnold, who had been so hot after other German cartel
affiliates, took a very different position as regards Sterling Products
and favored dropping the investigation. Said Mr. Stokes:

"So did Undersecretary of War Production who sat with the Committee,
along with Leo Crowley, Alien Property Custodian.... Suppression of
the Sterling investigation climaxes one of the most amazing examples
of "inside baseball" ever seen here. Suspicions were aroused
that high administration officials were trying to duck the inquiry
when Mr. Crowley was asked to testify about Sterling with particular
reference to the synthetic quinine monopoly which one of its subsidiaries,
the Winthrop Co.  still owned 50 percent by I. G. Farben-industrie
 possess by virtue of its control of German patents  Mr.
Crowley kept postponing his appearance. Despite earlier assurances
that he was going to take over the substitute quinine patents and
release them generally ... he never did.... Questions in a public
hearing might have proved embarrassing. So he never did appear.

Another short-lived effort to force out the facts about Atabrine
was begun by Republican Congressman Bertrand W. Gearhart of California
who made a brave start to accomplish this purpose in the House of
Representatives on August 13, 1942.

 Ibid, pp. 221-222

This goes on. It gets worse. Treason's Peace, by Howard Watson
Armbruster. Read the book. It's very illuminating. It kept me up all
night and confirmed many of my suspicions. I recommend it highly.

But how does this sordid episode constitute biowar, you may ask? Surely,
it was at most, economic warfare. Not so.

Put yourself for a moment in the bloody, muddy boots of an American
dogface in the Philippine hell of spring 1942. Imagine that you are
one of that one out of 10 stricken with malaria.

Malaria! The horror, the horror.

Your head swims in a murky soup and pounds like sun drenched tarmac
splitting under a jackhammer. You're drenched in sweat but you shiver
like a merchant marine torpedoed in the North Sea. Knee deep in Bataan's
festering muck, your trembling legs are covered with leaches. Clouds
of mosquitoes swarm in your eyes. For weeks, months, it seems like years,
you have been retreating, step by bloody step, back up the peninsula,
back to Corrigidor.

Corrigidor. Will you live to make it? Your commander, General Douglas
"Dugout Doug" MacArthur is already safely ensconced there,
deep underground. But will you, yourself, make it? You're no brass hat.
You're just some kid from Kansas, or is it Brooklyn, trying to do his
duty. You don't get a dugout to hide in and a PT boat to rescue you.
You get a muddy hole to hide in and the incessant rattle of Yamashita's
chattering Nambus, their hot lead teeth tearing life from limb all around
you. Corpses stink in the sweltering heat. They were your buddies. Now
they're dead; their bodies black and swollen. Will you be next? Or will
you live to march back up Bataan in the blistering sun with a guard's
whip to drive you and a bayonet in your gut if you stumble and fall?

A sniper's 97 cracks somewhere out in the bush in front of you. Lead
whizzes past your buddy's ear. Where's the sniper? A stroke of luck,
you see him. Through fever's swirling blur you somehow spot the sniper
in his perch. You try to draw a bead. Your hands are shaking so. Malaria,
goddamnit. You grit your teeth. You bite your tongue. You taste the
blood. You can't remember when last you brushed your teeth. The sniper
smiles, his steady, healthy hands caress the warm Murata. The M1 dances
in your hand. Son of a bitch, hold still! You can't. It won't. Your
shot goes wild. His doesn't. Your buddy's body jerks, its throat shot
out. As he sinks into the ooze, his last desperate gasp sucks mud into
the wound. It gurgles. He twitches one last time. Your eyes meet his.
Your last meal, such as it was, explodes from your mouth, and splatters
on his face. It's the last thing he ever sees. Tears mingle with the
fetid malarial sweat that runs in rivers down your cheek.

"Medic," you cry in that hoarse whisper you kid yourself
he'll hear, "Medic! Get me some goddamn Atabrine, goddamnit!"

He can't. There isn't any left. Winthrop didn't make enough to go around.